Holiday letter survey

Okay, now's your opportunity to vent on the subject of holiday letters you receive from family, friends, and barely-acquaintances. Since my kids were young, I have annually sent out holiday letters updating friends and family who don't live within visiting distance on what my family has been doing for the past twelve months. While opting not to brag about my kids' exploits, I have limited my writing mostly to places we have traveled. This format began when we lived in Germany for two years. It was so much easier to write one letter and duplicate it several dozen times than jot the same few brief lines on a plethora of Christmas cards. Somehow it seemed more personal to give more detail about our lives than to just skim the surface in an assembly-line kind of way. I always, however, kept the text to one printed page.

I still do this even though my kids no longer live at home. I know they don't communicate with my friends and family, so I keep everyone up to date. Often our friends have kids who grew up with mine. I love reading what their kids are doing, and I respond in kind. Until this year.... I'm having second thoughts.

My husband shared with me an article from the Wall Street Journal about the incessant bragging in today's social media. While I don't have a Facebook page or tweet my every thought, I do have those darn holiday letters (and now this blog - which very few people know about) which accomplish the same thing, only not with such consuming frequency.

How do you feel about holiday letters? Do you want to know what's going on in my life, or is a brief telling of my annual travels nothing more than poorly disguised bragging?

Are you out there, dear readers?

Please comment to this blog:
a) I enjoy reading holiday letters from friends and family, or
b) no offense, but no thanks.

I promise I will not hold your heartfelt opinions against you. This is a search for truth. Thanks!